Social media users and even a Polish parliamentarian shared a video falsely claiming that migrants were secretly coming into Kraków in the dead of night. In reality, the footage showed a group of tourists walking to their hotel in the early morning hours. False claims targeting foreigners have spread widely on social media ahead of the Polish elections.
A video that went viral on social media alleging that migrants are entering the Polish city of Krakow at night has proven to be false, EuroNews reported last week (April 28).
A video of a group of people pulling their luggage through the streets was shared with captions that erroneously read: "Fake asylum seekers are dumped in Kraków, Poland, at night, when Poles are sleeping."
EuroNews screened the video using a reverse image search, which showed that the original video was posted by a public advocacy group calling out what they dubbed a "hotel crawl". The group in the video was reported to be tourists making their way to their hotel past one in the morning. While the tourists themselves were not noisy, the advocacy group said that the noise made by their suitcases disturbed the residents.
The claim was also shared by some Polish parliamentarians, including Anna Krupka of the right-wing populist group, Law and Justice. Krupka reportedly accused Kraków of bringing migrants into the city "under the cover of the night".
Kraków's mayor, Aleksander Miszalski, condemned the misinformation, calling on Krupka to issue a public apology for disseminating false information that harmed the city's image. Krupka's post was deleted, but Miszalski insisted that deleting the post was insufficient. The matter has been referred to the parliamentary ethics commission.
Anti-migrant disinformation ahead of Polish elections
False claims about migrants have spread on social media in the run-up to Poland's presidential election, to take place on May 18, with right-wing and far-right candidates attacking the ruling pro-European government's migration policy, reported AFP.
The claims include Germany sending Muslim and Black migrants across the border to Poland in large numbers, and Ukrainian refugees supposedly taking advantage of the state benefits system.
While anti-migrant disinformation in Poland has been on the rise for years, recent incidents have added an "anti-German rhetoric, which feeds on anti-German and anti-European phobias," Anna Mierzynska, an independent social media expert, told AFP.
One figure has been circulating widely: that of 10,000 migrants -- purportedly from the Middle East and Africa -- claimed to have been sent back to Poland by Germany. The Polish interior ministry clarified that these are cases of entry into Germany being refused in 2024, 60 percent of which were Ukrainians, mainly due to a lack of valid passports.
"This is manipulation of figures for political gain," said Monika Szulecka, a researcher at the Centre for Migration Studies.
Disinformation against migrants
Disinformation targeting migrants and asylum seekers is rampant. A 2024 European Digital Media Observatory Report showed that 9 percent of all fact-checked disinformation was migration-related, the highest recorded number since monitoring started.
Common false narratives depicted migrants as criminals, threats to Western values, or receiving preferential treatment over local residents. Other forms of disinformation erroneously linked migrants to tragic events.
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Pre-bunking as a pro-active measure
According to Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a German think tank, migration is an easy target for disinformation because of its links to religion, employment, and societal values. Disinformation is meant to stoke people's fears and anxieties about economic security and political stability.
An FES study states that while numerous fact-checking organizations across Europe actively debunk false claims, their efforts to take down or disprove posts come after they have been published and potentially shared.
FES, along with the European Policy Centre, is calling for a 'prebunking' approach to counter migration-related disinformation. Pre-bunking includes bolstering media literacy programs and collaborations between schools, journalists, and the public to equip citizens with the necessary critical thinking skills to spot disinformation.
Other recommendations include using a predictive stance to identify future disinformation trends by analyzing key political or migration-related events.